Three movies and a book that I saw/read recently, that I keep thinking about

The latest two first: I just finished reading (listening to) The Warmth of Other Suns, by Isabel Wilkerson. It is both dramatized biographies and an overview of the Great Migration of Southern Negro-classified people to the North and West. I enjoyed the life stories, but the parts that keep recurring to me, at various times during the day, during various activities, is the amount of new information imparted in close to a first-person telling, of the realities of living in the Post-Reconstruction Jim Crow states, and the continuing themes in the other states. As a child, I used to ask myself, "Why didn't they just leave." Even after the difficulty in leaving an emotionally abusive long-term marriage, I still didn't connect the dots that leaving the South was difficult and dangerous, perhaps fatally so.

There were two eye opening things that I wonder why I didn't already know or figure out (??? What is it that makes not knowing uncomfortable things so easy? Is it not knowing, or refusing to know?) that occur to me now, as I write this. The first was the determined, consistent, and successful cheating of sharecroppers to ensure that they could neither obtain their own land, or leave the place on which they worked. The second was how Slavery 2.0 was enforced on everyone, no matter their classification, and whether or not they were in the actual South (those states that went to war with democracy to maintain their hold on the lives and labor of those classed as Negro), or just South-thinking adjacent. The most striking story was of making a multi-day highway trip from Louisiana to California, and trying to get a place to sleep for the night. Even when the motel owner seemed to want to rent to the traveler, and not just for the income, but because it was the Golden Rule thing to do; he couldn't bring himself to do it, due to the hell that he adjudged would rain ("reign" works here too ...) down on him from his fellow motel/hotel owners in his community. Even, he said, if the traveler were to "sneak away" in the pre-dawn darkness so as not to be seen leaving the establishment. I saw the movie Green Book; I knew about the prohibitions. What I didn't know, was that the saying, "All it takes for evil to succeed is for good to do nothing" was being demonstrated over and over again, all over. Now, I have cogitated, thinking about the holocaust, how willingly, or not, I'd step forward to help Jewish-classified people, if I would have been German-classified. The German enforcers would hang your children from your own balcony before killing you, if you were caught aiding and abetting.

So, immediately upon finishing this book, the same day even, I watched the movie The Banker (2020 Anthony Mackie, Samuel L. Jackson, Nia Long). I think I may have caught wind of this movie here on Democracy Underground. It was beautifully made, with great acting, and many of the things written about in the aforementioned book were playing out on the the screen. In living color, so to speak. The story, of Negro-classified bankers trying, and mainly succeeding, to live the American Dream in spite of the American White Supremacy was delightful. The movie was (loosely, I'm guessing) based on a true history. I say loosely, because there was a bit of a save at the end, after the confiscation of assets that seemed like way more than the alleged monetary discrepancy that had been "discovered." Of note is that a White-classified partner was forced to betray them under threat of total confiscation of assets and a 50 year prison sentence. This is the above theme playing out once again. "I want to live by the Golden Rule, but this god damned White Supremacy won't let me." No wonder it is so hard to fight that demon intertwined with structure.

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The next movie that has been revisiting me lately is Quiz Lady (2023 Awkwafina, Sandra Oh, Will Ferrell) . This delightful romp manages to address neurodivergence, LGBTQIA+ themes, siblings coming through for each other, missing-dad coping strategies, and quiz shows.


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And, the third movie: Moving On (2022 Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda). It's a low-key, pretty serious movie, interspersed with bouts of slapstick comedy à la It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It is about two old, in both senses, friends as they face their last years. One subplot follows the Me Too theme, and how these traumatic events live on for decades and decades, and another is about a young person trying to figure out their gender, and why it is a problem for their parents. Lily Tomlin's character is there to supply love, appreciation, and understanding based on that person's character, not on which toys or clothes they choose. For me Moving On was truly moving.